It’s the second sea day to Jordan and now we are sailing along
the Gulf of Aden towards Aqaba. It’s another hot one so we are enjoying some educational
activities indoors. I am watching a
documentary about the design and build of the Bahrain world trade centre’s twin
towers with their environmentally friendly wind turbines, between the towers
and powering them to save the equivalent of 6,000,000 barrels of oil p.a.
We have once again spent a very healthy hour in the gym today, increasing our times
and walking distance on the treadmill, rower, static bike and arm cycle. These
machines are all positioned so we can see out of the windows to the front of
the ship, but also have sockets for headphones so we can watch the Arcadia’s
channels while we work. We are
maintaining safe and healthy exercising heart rates, all calculated
electronically using our weight and age.
I had a lovely yoga practice afterwards too. Next up was art – today’s watercolour was an
autumn leafy landscape (Alderley Woods, that’s the Alderley Edge near
Manchester). Partly happy with this,
partly not! Easa's is the first one. You have to guess which belongs to Khachik and which to me.
Tomorrow, a King Charles Spaniel.
Tomorrow, a King Charles Spaniel.
Another part of the on-board university consists of whetting
our appetite with information from the ports we have still to come on Sector 5.
There’s a port talk on every sea day. The person doing all the port talks is
called Sam. She doesn’t tire, and she
remains very professional calm and pleasant. Sometimes she has had to deal with
tours not going quite to plan too, and some fellow passengers can get a bit
heated.
Anyway, back to the talks. Yesterday’s was Aqaba and today Piraeus. We are all
set for these two.
We are right in the middle of a profoundly troubled middle
east, sailing between Yemen and Somalia but apart from the security measures on
board you wouldn’t know it. We will be visiting Petra when we arrive in
Aqaba. We tourists have booked a whole day tour (10 hours) to get there, walk
the walk to the Lost City, take a rest, lunch and then set off back for the
ship. The weather forecast is 7-17C. The
walk is 5 miles to “the Treasury” and back, but you can go further if you have
the energy.
There are times when my own personal experiences and the
happenings on this cruise are totally eclipsed by the bigger picture. This is
one of those times. I am really mindful
of those people who belong in Syria, especially so because we are going to be
in one of Syria’s neighbouring countries, conscious of all our wealth and
privilege, whilst thousands of refugees fight for their lives having lost
everything. I have been watching the devastation in Yarmouk on TV. It was unimaginable horror. Even before . I will not blog about this any more for now even though the human suffering around us is dominating my thoughts, there are a few good reasons I don't want to discuss it here. However, my thoughts are really not only about this journey.
After Aqaba we have another few days at sea, sailing through
the Suez Canal, no longer stopping in Egypt instead heading straight for Piraeus
for Athens, Greece. On that day we have
booked “Ancient Corinth and Canal Cruise”. That’s when our ship’s security
measures will be lifted.
Once we have visited Athens we will only have two stops left
– Valetta in Malta and Lisbon in Portugal.
How can that be? Honestly I cannot believe we have been away 3 months
already. I will when I read this 40,000
word blog back!
When we got back to our cabin we had a lunch invite for
tomorrow under the door. This is the
second lunch for half of the world cruisers today and the other half the day
after. We loved the first one. We were sitting on that occasion with an
officer called Victoria Fletcher, who has remembered us ever since and even
yesterday stopped for a chat, admiring our Thai silk! I am looking forward to something just as
good tomorrow.
I forgot to say yesterday that we also had some P and O post
to let us know that we have moved up a tier on the loyalty programme. We are now on the “Mediterranean” tier entitling
us to 8.5% discount on our on-board spends, giving us great satisfaction. That has been applied to our tours for this
sector, a coffee each in Costa and yesterday’s shopping spree in Piccadilly on
deck 3.
We like this.
We are just getting ready for dinner so will say bye for now.
Sea days make me focus a lot on food, as
there is so much of it, and so many choices.
Perhaps the blog will reflect this tomorrow, as there are going to be
two scrummy menu’s to report! Bye for
today.
